Many applications rely on sensing a physical quantity such as a magnetic quantity, a temperature, a pressure, a physical quantity related to electromagnetic radiation or a mechanical exposure, to name just a few. The applications come from all fields of technology. For instance, some applications come from measuring a rotation speed and a rotation direction of a wheel of a motorized vehicle, a steering angle, or the like. These measurements may, for instance, be carried out using magnetic field sensor elements, optical sensor elements or other sensor elements, such as sensor elements sensitive to a mechanical stress.
Due to the widespread application of these sensors, expectations exist to simplify their manufacturing and implementation to reduce, for instance, costs associated with these devices. However, in many applications also reliability as well as accuracy are of at least some importance. Sources for inaccuracies come, for instance, from deviations from stable sensing conditions as well as variations such as temperature-related or process-related variations to name just two examples.
Therefore, a demand exists to improve a trade-off between an improved compensation of variations, simplifying an implementation, simplifying the manufacturing, simplifying the sensing and providing stable sensing conditions.